The Police Pensions (Descriptions of Service) Order 2010

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

The Police Pensions Act 1976 (“the 1976 Act”) makes provision for pensions to be paid to and in respect of members of police forces. Section 11(1) provides that, for the purposes of the Act, membership of a police force or service or employment in a police force includes external service of various kinds.

This Order amends section 11(1) of the 1976 Act by the addition of service as Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency to the kinds of service which constitute membership of a police force. Section 48 of the UK Border Act 2007 created the post of Chief Inspector, with the function of monitoring and reporting on the efficiency and effectiveness of the performance of functions by various customs and immigration authorities as set out in section 48(1A) and (1B).

The Order also makes supplementary amendments to section 7 and 11 of the 1976 Act to allow police pensions regulations to make provision in relation to the payment of the Chief Inspector’s contributions and pension, to provide that the Secretary of State is treated as the police authority and the Home Office is treated as the police force in relation to the Chief Inspector for the purposes of the 1976 Act, and to provide that the reference to service as Chief Inspector in section 11(1) only applies to a person who was a member of a police force (within the wide meaning of that term in section 11) immediately before he was first appointed as Chief Inspector, and has served as a police officer at some stage. Although the effect of the Order is that the Home Office will have certain responsibilities in relation to the Chief Inspector’s pension, he remains wholly independent of the Department in the exercise of his own functions.